


I'm Grounding All My Dreams

by foundfamilyvevo



Series: Megaphone to My Chest (NCT College AU) [3]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, As in that's what the whole fic is about but Ten's not even in it, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Johnny Seo is a Whole Mess, M/M, Minor Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten/Seo Youngho | Johnny, Pining, Platonic Kissing, Yukhei is a Huge Flirt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-02 03:40:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19433188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundfamilyvevo/pseuds/foundfamilyvevo
Summary: Johnny thinks that maybe, just maybe, if he could be more like Yukhei, he wouldn't think about Ten so much.Or, Johnny gets drunk in Chicago and Yukhei is a good friend.





	I'm Grounding All My Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> this is part of the college au but can be read as a standalone. the johnny/yukhei is platonic but no yukheis were harmed in the making of this fic. also i didn't realise that any of this was underage drinking when i was writing it because i'm from aus and forgot that the us drinking age is 21. woops. so. read that as you will but my intention was not to encourage illegal alcohol consumption.
> 
> title is from 'homesick at space camp' by fall out boy. my love affair with chicago continues across all my bandoms, apparently.
> 
> usual disclaimer: this story is based on stage representations of people and not the people themselves. it claims nothing about these people, their actual relationships with each other or their personalities. it's a fiction based on a fiction. please don't send it to anyone involved. cheers.

Chicago is a dream to Johnny, and always has been. Korea has always felt like home and Chicago feels like a dreamscape. Every inch of the neighbourhood where he grew up makes him feel too big for his body and too small for the world. Every time he saw the skyline as a child, he itched to get beyond it. He remembers being six or seven and scraping his knees on the sidewalk and it’s such a vivid memory, but at the same time, every time he leaves Chicago, he wonders if it’ll still be there when he comes back. Like it could fade away and vanish.

But it’s there, concrete, beautiful, the skyline lit up against the night. If there’s a city that truly never sleeps, Johnny thinks it’s Chicago. He thinks this as he walks along the footpath with a clamouring group of students, guys from Jackson’s frat, on his way to some end-of-semester party that Yukhei has convinced him to go to. Though he’s surrounded by people, whenever he sees that Chicago skyline, he’s drawn inwards. Like he’s in a bubble. A dream only he must be able to see. Sounds only he can hear. His Chicago is his, and his alone. A made-up place.

(Yukhei had laughed when Johnny had first said that to him, when they were hanging out in Yukhei’s dorm room, Yukhei sprawled on the floor and eating ice cream out of the tub. Whenever Yukhei gets home from basketball, he’s famished, and will eat whatever he can find in its entirety. He talks with his mouth full and he always makes Johnny laugh, and it only takes them a few weeks to become friends. “What do you mean, Chicago isn’t real? Don’t we both live in it?”

“I mean _my_ Chicago,” Johnny had said. “It’s different.”

Yukhei just laughed, pulled the spoon out of his big mouth with a resounding _pop!,_ and went to take a shower. But he didn’t question it, either, and sometimes that’s what Johnny needs.)

So Johnny’s on his way to this party. He’s being jostled by a bunch of drunk, excited frat kids, and he’s enjoying it because the extroverted puppy part of Johnny has always thrived on being knocked around by people he’s affectionate about, and he’s excited to get drunk and forget things for a bit, because Ten texted him for the first time in forever this afternoon, to ask when he was coming home.

One of the guys (Johnny can’t remember his name. Ken? Karl? Something strange. Like a dad?) puts an arm around Johnny and says, “I’m never doing exams ever again.”

“Kevin,” says another, Bradley, exasperated, and Johnny remembers _Kevin_ , “You’re in first year.”

Kevin shrugs him off and says, “Johnny knows I mean it. I’m never taking exams ever again. I’m done with college.”

Johnny nods, composes his face to be very serious. “I believe you. A determined man, is Kevin: whatever you set your mind to not-accomplish, you won’t.”

All the drunk boys laugh like Johnny is the funniest thing they’ve ever seen. The rush of adrenaline buoys him. He can do it. He can be loved by other people, in other ways. He doesn’t need home, or anything that comes with it.

Especially not Ten.

The party is only just starting to build when they arrive, as they are twenty-odd strong and compose the majority of the attendees from Johnny’s side of campus, and therefore they get dibs on the best kinds of alcohol available. Johnny mixes himself a rum and coke and chats to Jackson for awhile in the kitchen while someone else puts on a playlist. Nicki Minaj makes him think of Ten, so he yells at them to skip the song.

“Fuck you, man, who doesn’t like Nicki!” shouts Brad, but he does as Johnny says, because they like Johnny, because he comes and picks them up when they’re lost and proof-reads their papers for them because he’s older.

(He remembers the first party he went to with Brad. Well, he hadn’t gone with Brad; he had gone with Yukhei, back when he still called Yukhei Lucas.

Like Johnny’s Chicago, meeting Lucas felt like a strange dream. He approached Johnny during Johnny’s orientation and sweet-talked him for more than five minutes before Johnny could get a word in edgewise to tell Lucas that he couldn’t join the Chinese Students Association, on account of not being Chinese. Lucas hadn’t missed a beat, sly smile on his face, and said, “Well, you should come to my party anyway.”

So Johnny did. It was a busy party, full of Asian students, some American, some on exchange. Johnny never has trouble making friends, and at some point while he was having plenty of fun with the new American students he was meeting, exchanging Snapchats and talking about his thesis, he realised he had lost Lucas in the crowd. “Has anyone seen Lucas?” he asked the group at large, and was met with sniggers.

“Yeah, has anyone seen Brad, either, though?”

Johnny saw Brad later, with his hair a mess, his eyes glazed over. Lucas seemed the same as always, coming up behind Johnny and putting his big hands on Johnny’s shoulders. “Hey, Johnny,” he said, because this was when he still called Johnny ‘Johnny’. He sounded peppy, almost normal. “I’m tired. Wanna go home?”

“Yeah, sure,” said Johnny. Because he knew better than to ask.)

“Feels good to be finished with mid-sems,” says Jackson, pouring himself a vodka-soft drink mix with careful precision. “I know the rest of the semester’s gonna kick my ass, but it feels real good right about now.”

Johnny laughs, tips his head in agreement, and sips his drink. “You’ll feel great once you graduate. It’s worth it.”

“So I hear,” says Jackson. “What are you going to do? After this, I mean?”

_When are you coming home?_

Johnny shakes his head, tries to put Ten’s texts out of his head, tries to put everything about Ten out of his head. “I dunno,” he says, “I’ll get a job on _Project Runway_ or something.”

Jackson laughs, like Johnny wanted him to. “You’d be so good, man. All the guys send you their date outfits, you know that, right?”

Pretending to be surprised, Johnny gasps, puts a hand over his heart. “You mean those aren’t just group Snapchats?”

“Nah, they really trust your opinion!” Jackson downs his drink in one go and starts on another. “You could do it. _Johnny Seo, project runway judge._ I see it. I’ll be able to tell people I went to college with you. Did you ever do photography, as well?”

Before Johnny can respond, a deep voice behind him says, “Younghoooo!”

He turns around, and Jackson says, “Lucas! Buddy, nice to see you.”

As Yukhei gives Johnny a one-armed hug, he tucks his chin over Johnny’s shoulder and gives Jackson a high five with his other hand. “You guys got started without me? You suck.”

(“So what’s your _name_ name?” Yukhei had asked, back when Johnny still called him Lucas.

“What do you mean?” Johnny replied, “Johnny. That’s my name.”

“No, man.” Lucas snorted, like Johnny was dumb, but fondly, like he liked dumb. “What did your mom call you, growing up? You know, your family name, not the name you used at school.”

 _Oh_. Johnny realised what Lucas was asking. “Youngho. But nobody calls me that.”

“Youngho,” repeated Lucas, like he was tasting it to see if he liked it, like a free sample at an ice cream parlour. “Youngho,” he said again, like he was deciding whether to get one scoop or two. “Well, I’m gonna call you that.”

Johnny had laughed. “Okay, if you like.”

Lucas looked at him, deliberately making eye contact. And Johnny knew exactly what kind of boy Lucas was, had known since that first party, but it still felt like he was being singled out. Scanned. “I think,” Lucas said slowly, blinking slowly, everything gooey and slow, “that this far from home, we need a piece of it with us.” He tapped Johnny’s chest, over his heart. Like he knew that Chicago wasn’t Johnny’s home, that it never would be, not really. “And so fair's fair, if you’re Youngho,” he said, “I’m Yukhei.”)

“Well, if you’d been here on time…” Jackson shrugs, raises his eyebrows.

“Who arrives on time,” scoffs Yukhei, keeping his arm around Johnny’s waist, giving him a little squeeze with his fingertips. Johnny leans against Yukhei’s shoulder, bats his eyelashes to make Jackson snort. Yukhei runs a hand through his hair and says, “Ah, Youngho. Missed you.”

“Did you?” Johnny pokes him. “You saw me yesterday.”

“Always miss you,” Yukhei says, grin spreading ear to ear. It’s flirty, but that’s to be expected, with Yukhei.

It’s odd to think how different their dynamic would be, if they had met in Korea, or Hong Kong, where Yukhei is from. Johnny knows he’s a few years older than Yukhei - doesn’t know how old Yukhei is exactly, but knows Johnny’s older. He likes that there’s no ‘hyung’, no expectations. Yukhei is one of the only people who doesn’t seem to think of Johnny as his big brother.

“Okay!” says Yukhei, pushing Johnny gently off him and towards the mixers. “Make me one, so I can catch up!”

(Every party Johnny has been to with Yukhei, he’s watched Yukhei talk people up, talk people down, talk people into things. People sometimes said they thought Yukhei was dumb, but Johnny doesn’t see it. All he sees is that Yukhei’s goofy, and grounded, and deliberate. Johnny thinks that maybe, just maybe, if he could be more like Yukhei, he wouldn't think about Ten so much. If Yukhei wasn’t in Chicago, he would probably be the realest thing in Johnny’s life).

They dance to stupid music in the living room, build towers out of cans, and there are so many girls that Yukhei doesn’t seem to know where to smile first. When someone puts Red Velvet on, Johnny screams his lungs out to the songs and pretends they don’t remind him of anything or anywhere else, and Yukhei joins him, just as loud even though he doesn’t know a single one of the words. Before he knows it, he’s several drinks in, and as much as he’s having fun, the sleep loss from the long nights seems to be catching up with Johnny. He almost falls asleep on Jackson’s couch, but Yukhei shakes him awake, says, “Hey, Youngho, let’s get you to a bed. C’mon, old man, your back won’t survive a night on this two-seater.”

“Shut up,” Johnny slurs, but Yukhei helps him up anyway, even though Yukhei can’t be that much more sober than he is. “Where’re we going?”

“There’s an empty room upstairs,” Yukhei says, more like purrs, right in Johnny’s ear.

“Get that suggestive tone away from me,” Johnny scoffs, faux-scandalised, but there’s no real feeling in it, and he lets Yukhei keep an arm around his waist.

As they pass the kitchen, they poke their heads in to say goodnight. “Ni-night, Jackson.”

“Night, babes. Take care of each other.” Jackson blows them a kiss over his beer, and it makes Johnny and Yukhei both collapse into giggles that last until they’re up the stairs and flopped down in the bed. The laughing is giving Johnny a stitch, and it takes a few minutes for it to abate properly. Yukhei’s cheeks are flushed gold and his mouth keeps drawing Johnny’s eyes. When he shifts closer to Johnny on the bed, his open, unbuttoned shirt slides off his hip. In Johnny’s drunken, blurry mind, he puts a hand on it, to cover it, in protest. Yukhei grins, lazy, laughs like it’s all easy, murmurs, “If you want to kiss me, I won’t say no.”

Johnny looks again at Yukhei’s lips, glistening with vodka and spit. His stomach rolls, nervous, a little tired. He starts to think about how far away home is. He starts to think about how big the world is and how little say he has in what happens in it. But then Yukhei moves again, rests a leg over Johnny, lanky and loose, and their noses brush as he turns his head.

Yukhei’s breath tastes like cranberry mixer and his lips are soft. When their teeth bump, Yukhei doesn’t seem to mind.

In that moment, mouths together, as Yukhei threads his long fingers into the hairs on the back of Johnny’s neck, Johnny is thinking about the last time he kissed someone, about that specific moment of kissing someone up against a wall and then down their neck and hearing all the breathy sounds they made - and then he’s thinking about how Ten looked at him right after, dazed, starry - and then he’s thinking about how Ten looked at him the next morning, stony, scared -

All Johnny can fucking think about is Ten.

Yukhei pulls back, and pulls Johnny back into the moment with him in the same movement.

“Sorry,” Johnny says, shakes himself, moves to kiss Yukhei again, but Yukhei brings his hand from Johnny’s neck to his jaw and cups his cheek, thumb sweeping along his lips.

“Don’t be sorry,” he says, light, sweet, “I get it.”

“You do?” asks Johnny, confused by the gentle touch, sweating from the alcohol and the guilt and the homesickness, “I just - got distracted, I swear I’m good-”

“Youngho,” says Yukhei, knowing, almost amused, rubbing his thumb up and down over Johnny’s cheekbone, and Johnny’s eyes burn and his lip trembles. Yukhei doesn’t fuss, just hums, says, “Ah, man,” and tucks Johnny under his chin.

Yukhei is so much younger than him, and the rational part of Johnny knows that he shouldn’t have kissed him, or started crying, or be cuddling up, seeking comfort, seeking solace, the way that he is. But he’s so homesick, so beaten, so tired of Ten being everything even with all the space and time between them. When Yukhei pets the back of his hair, Johnny doesn’t make him stop.

Time goes gooey and slow. The next time Johnny opens his eyes, his phone tells him it’s 3:21am, and Yukhei is snoring in bed next to him. Careful not to jostle him as he gets up, Johnny sneaks out onto the balcony of the second floor, and as the ringtone dials on his mobile, looks out over the neighbourhood. It feels like he could smear it with his fingertips, like a painting.

“Hey!” says Jaehyun on the other end of the line, bright and awake and a little concerned. It’s 5pm in Seoul: Johnny checked before he called, on the little world clock widget he put on his phone when he first came to Chicago. He thought he’d be using it a lot more. “Are you okay? Isn’t it really early?”

“Yeah,” says Johnny. “How are you? How are things?”

“Good, I mean - yeah, good,” says Jaehyun. “Got a lot to do on my research proposal, I’m giving it on-”

“On Friday, right?” Johnny remembers. “I’m sure it’ll be great, Jae. You always are.”

“Thanks, hyung,” says Jaehyun. “Taeyong’s got his the next week as well, so we’re a pretty boring house right now. I hope you’re having lots of adventures in the States, to make up for us.”

“I think I’m going to come home,” Johnny blurts out. “At Christmas.”

“Oh.” Johnny can hear the surprise in Jaehyun’s voice. “Is it - is everything okay?”

Johnny wants to tell Jaehyun everything. He wants to break down and tell Jaehyun about how homesick he is, about how he’s done the research he needs to do here and the only thing keeping him away from Seoul is his own crippling cowardice, about how he hasn’t spoken to Ten in six weeks. Instead, he swallows, pulls his shit together, and says, “Yeah, no, it’s good. I just miss home.”

Jaehyun doesn’t miss a single beat. He never has. “You should tell Ten.”

“I want it to be a surprise?” Johnny offers. He knows how weak it sounds. He knows how weak he is. He can’t imagine calling Ten, can’t even imagine texting him, to say, _I’m coming back to you_.

“It’s your call.” As always, Jaehyun sees just a little too much. “But I won’t say anything if you don’t want me to. Can I at least tell Taeyong?”

“Yeah,” Johnny hums, “Tell Tae. Tell him I miss him.”

“I will. We all miss you, hyung.”

Johnny sighs, theatrical, “How could you not?”

Jaehyun laughs. They wind up the call and a few minutes later, Johnny’s standing on the balcony, on his own, the weight of a decision made resting heavy on his shoulders, but somehow lightening the pressure on his chest.

The door behind him opens, and Johnny turns around to see Yukhei slip out, shivering in the cold. “Hey. Thought I might find you out here.”

It’s domestic, and Johnny’s stomach churns. He’s so fond of Yukhei. Yukhei’s hair is everywhere, for once not perfect, and he rubs his eye with a comically large hand and yawns. His nice, button-up shirt is undone and he pulls it around himself instead of doing it up. It’s got a mark from someone’s drink earlier in the night down one side, but Yukhei won’t care. His dad will send him money for fifteen silk shirts to replace it.

“Yukhei,” Johnny starts. “Are we - I’m really sorry if I - If I lead you on, or-”

Yukhei blinks, and then laughs. Hearty, warm, not his fake laugh or his flirty laugh, but one that seems surprised out of him. “How long have you known me now, Youngho?” he says. “Making out drunk is just part of my brand.”

Johnny can’t quite read him, can’t tell if it’s bravado or not, until Yukhei comes up beside him, pressing their shoulders together as he leans on the balcony railing. Yukhei rests his head on Johnny’s shoulder. “It’s that guy, right? The one who never texts you back?”

“How do you even know that?” Johnny asks, leaning in to the touch, still tipsy enough to be tactile without thinking.

“You think I don’t see you looking at your phone, man?” Yukhei smiles, not an ounce of regret or resentment to be seen. “I was hoping I could take your mind off it for a bit, is all. Think I just made it worse instead, though. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Johnny presses a kiss to the top of Yukhei’s head. “So we’re cool?” whispers Johnny, unable to resist making sure.

“Yeah, of course.” Yukhei nudges him with his elbow. “Always.”

They stand there together, settled. Looking back out over the rooftops, Johnny can hear a dog on some distant corner block, barking at what is probably an innocent passerby. The sound echoes, visceral, distant, like he might have imagined it. Yukhei starts to chatter, like his usual self, talking about what he’s going to do when his student visa here runs out, about all the other places he’d love to visit. The cold is starting to give him goosebumps all up his forearms. Johnny watches the way his hairs stand up, slowly, one at a time, until Yukhei shivers and they go back down again. He thinks about what a good friend Yukhei is. Thinks about how much Jaehyun and the others would adore him. About how he and Ten might get along.

Thinks about how real Yukhei feels, even in this weird dreamscape.

Johnny says, “You should come with me to Seoul.”

**Author's Note:**

> find me on twitter @sleepyrapline or tumblr @ brightyukhei please feel free to come yell at me.


End file.
